


Sleepless Nights and the Unholy Amount of Caffeine Consumed After

by MercedesBench



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: F/M, My First Work in This Fandom, One Shot, PLEEEEASE tell me if the characterization is off because i want to do this correctly, R&R, Very much fluff, may be OOC but idk, only kind of proofread because i am a lazy human, takes place during season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 10:25:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13499988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercedesBench/pseuds/MercedesBench
Summary: The one time Touka didn't find it beneficial to beat the crap out of Kaneki for waking her up waaaay too early.





	Sleepless Nights and the Unholy Amount of Caffeine Consumed After

It was an early Saturday morning, and a still deliriously-tired Kaneki was stumbling around the counter in the café. He hadn’t slept at all the night before (he was caught up reading and had somehow stayed up until ungodly early in the morning), but he was pretty sure Touka might actually kill him if he suddenly decided he couldn’t work. So there he was, in his pajamas, at four in the morning, trying to get as much caffeine into his system before the doors opened.

He fumbled with the portafilter, very nearly spilling the grounds while trying to secure it to the brew head. Well, from his view, one of three, blurry brew heads that wouldn’t stop moving. By some miracle, he fixed the portafilter without too many grounds being knocked off and floundered over to the cabinet to find a cup. 

Just as he was pulling one out, a sudden, very tired, and very irritated voice made him jump and nearly drop the delicate cup. “Kaneki… What the hell are you doing?”

He yelped and whipped around to where the voice was coming from, barely keeping the cup from falling to the floor. Standing at the bottom of the stairs, with a truly impressive bedhead, stood Touka. She too was in her pajamas, but despite her undignified appearance, her venomous expression overrode all that, and Kaneki found himself scared stiff.

He had managed to wake her up at four in the morning after she had gotten to sleep only a couple hours earlier after a very long, very late food run with Yomo. And she was pissed.

“Oh, uh… Making coffee?” Kaneki offered with an unconvincing smile while trying to fight back a massive yawn.

Touka’s eyes narrowed dangerously, and Kaneki flinched as she slunk towards the counter. However, she was not about to leap over the coffee-brewing apparatus to beat the ever-loving snot out of him, instead deciding she was too tired to do so and opted to slip into one of the stools and rest her head on the cold ledge, staring down at her bare feet. She mumbled obscenities under her breath all the while (Kaneki assumed they were directed at him), and after a short amount of time lifted her head and propped her chin on the table, her neck bending at an awkward angle. 

“You’ll ruin your posture,” he warned, clumsily positioning the cup he was holding under the portafilter. 

“Shut it,” she mumbled harshly.

Touka stared at the back wall of the café, half-lidded eyes strangely thoughtful. 

“Is it too late to ask you to make another batch?”

Kaneki was caught off-guard by the sudden request. He was used to Touka being extremely aloof during early mornings, usually just barging behind the counter herself, muttering very rude comments about everyone who happened to be in the general vicinity. He did not expect someone so independent and grouchy in the mornings to quietly ask someone else to make her coffee.

“Uh… Yeah, sure,” he replied, mid-yawn. 

She offered no acknowledgment besides shifting her head back to its original position.

The next few minutes passed in relative silence, save repressed yawns, the gurgling of the espresso machine, and the occasional shouting of drunk people out on the streets as they bumbled home. The stream of espresso into the cup caught both their attention, and a now slightly more awake Kaneki removed the portafilter and placed the full cup of coffee on the counter near Touka’s slightly lifted head.

She wordlessly lifted the cup and brought the rim to her mouth to take a sip. She immediately melted a little, eyes fluttering closed and shoulders sinking. She murmured something along the lines of: “Holy Hell, some actually palatable coffee.”

Kaneki tried to ignore the somewhat rude comment as he dumped the used grounds and readied another, larger, batch.

And so, the next hour-and-some-minutes passed with minimal conversation as the two downed cup after cup of the strongest brew Kaneki could make, desperately trying to make up for the lack of sleep. At about five-thirty, Touka sat up and popped her back, the copious amounts of caffeine starting to take its toll. “Everyone’s going to get up soon; we should probably get dressed,” A significantly more conscious Kaneki suggested, clearing the cups and placing them in the sink. 

Touka nodded, slipping to the floor and making her way to the stairs again. She paused as her hand rested on the railing and turned back towards the counter. “Hey,” she called, catching the sleep-deprived boy’s attention. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“Oh. You’re welcome,” he replied, unsure what to make of thanks from her. 

It’s odd to hear an expression of gratitude from her, he thought as he rinsed out the used portafilters.

He left the café perplexed, wondering if it was actually her or the sleep deprivation and subsequent downing of several cups of strong coffee speaking.


End file.
